Why can some blogs not be blocked in the reader?
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I run across several blogs regularly in my tag subscriptions that don’t have the drop-down that allows blocking or reporting content. They are invariably blogs of corporate entities (TV and radio stations in particular), and most of them are borderline or outright tag-spammy. They’re especially bad in busy tags (Recipes and Birds are just loaded with them). Did they pay someone for the privilege of spamming as they please? Is there anything I can do about it?
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Could you maybe send me the links of these blogs? or the reader link where you see these listed.
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Here are three with no block buttons I culled from the Birds and Recipes tags. I see they’re all non-wp.com blogs, but still in my reader; I don’t know if that’s true of every problem one:
http://driving.ca/
http://theberry.com/
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/(I am not saying these are among the spamming ones, but all three are unblockable in my reader.)
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These are VIP bloggers. Perhaps you can share a specific post of which you think it’s “tag-spammy”. Otherwise feel free to report any abusive or spam content at http://wordpress.com/abuse/
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So the answers to my questions would be “Yes, they paid,” and “No, you’re stuck with it unless you don’t subscribe to tags,” then. I suppose in this case spam is a matter of opinion, and I lose out to a paying advertiser, but this to me is nothing but mentioning birds in a way no one reading the tag could possibly care about so they can sell their completely unrelated site on an active tag:
http://driving.ca/%make%/auto-news/news/logging-haulers-seeking-new-options/
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I understand your concern but in this case the post is legit. However we do apply a filter in our reader and if posts regularly use unrelated tags the blog will be excluded from tag pages. Thanks for your feedback though, we’ll keep an eye on it.
You can read more information about the policies regarding quality content at http://wordpress.com/types-of-blogs/
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As I say, “legit” and “quality” posts are matters of opinion. I have no intention of entering into a futile I say/you say on whether one particular post is spam or not, and I shouldn’t have allowed this discussion to degenerate into that. It isn’t the point.
My complaint remains a general one, not a specific one about any one blog or post: The reader does not allow me to filter everything I consider spam, and that is not done based on legitimacy or quality of content, but on who gave who money. I’m not even given an option *to* throw money at the problem (say, $5 a year to have a block button available on this garbage?).
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We currently don’t do customized filtering yet in the way you describe. However, we’ve registered your suggestion and will keep it in mind for future features and updates!
Also, don’t forget the ideas forum, where you can discuss your suggestion with the WordPress.com community: https://en.forums.wordpress.com/forum/ideas
Feel free to contact us if you have any other questions.
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